Friday 23rd December, 2022

I fell asleep last night waiting for stupid Sky Sports to get its arse in gear for the League Cup draw. Just BLOODY TELL ME who Forest have got in the quarters. Instead they banged on way past my bedtime about how great Man City and Liverpool are. Forest have beaten Liverpool this season. We’ll pass over Man City.

And so the first task early on Friday morning was to see who we’ve got in the last eight. Oh goody. Wolves will be visiting The World Famous City Ground. I’ll have a bit of that. PLAYTIME, etc.

Next up was the slug incident on the kitchen floor. I was barefooted at the time. Ewww. Fingers were pointed. I suspect Dotty brought the slug in unknowingly on her fur overnight.

Morning plans for a wiff waff knock up were abandoned. It was pissing it down in the bloody Estuary Wilds. The Table of Dreams will have to wait another day until the Christmas Cup is contested. Just give me the trophy now. luv.

Album of the Day: A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

I hate Christmas. I hate Christmas music. This isn’t going to go very well, is it? I tried to listen this through the prism of the production alone. The way the sounds attacks you like a tidal wave is fantastic. But they’re singing about Christmas. I hate Christmas. I hate Christmas songs.

⭐ ⭐

The Postman Delivers: Setting Sons.

Hang on. The Postman Delivers? I thought there was another strike taking place today. I fear that my CD buying obsession is fuelling the scab economy.

The Postman Also Delivers: a turkey. Gobble, gobble etc. It wasn’t technically the postie, but it’s remarkable these days what can come to your door by pressing a button on your phone.

I listened a little to Robert Elms. He played Terry Hall’s cover of This Guy’s In Love With You. “One of the good guys,” as Elms said. He always gets these moments just right. There’s a Terry Hall four-fer scheduled in for Saturday morning with Elms.

The next task was to download the ukgov tax ID scanning app. It was very clever, plus a little scary. I pointed my phone at my face and it did the magic of recognising me as the mug that appears on my analogue passport. I felt like I had walked on to the Bridge on the Enterprise.

I had the afternoon free to road test another f717 that I found buried away in a tech cupboard. It had a post it note attached where I had scribbled: bought March ’14. Working OK. My task was to evaluate what level of OK I was referring to eight years ago.

To Brightlingsea! …was the optimistic call as I strolled out in the pissing rain. Ten minutes later and I had reassessed this with To Alresford! …being a more realistic target.

There was a very, very high water. Over a decade on and I still find these exciting. Some weird shit of an explosion rocked the estuary.

BANG!

I think it was some military exercise out along the coast that then bounced all the way upstream to Weird Wiv.

I bid farewell to the rain as I reached the mouth of the Creek. I could see the sun fighting for attention on the horizon as the rain retreated. It was time to put the f717 to the test.

This was my usual summer running route. It was decent to take a step back and have the time to take in the surroundings as I snapped away.

I reached the relics of the derelict St Andrew’s at Alresford as Robert Elms dropped Fairytale of New York in my AirPods. It was quite a moment.

St Andrew’s has fallen into further disrepair over the past decade. The old brickwork is noticeably crumbling and falling out in places. It still remains a beautiful place to visit, all year round. I wouldn’t fancy my chances here come dusk, mind.

I pressed on and tracked back along the ridge of the estuary. It was deserted. The sight of unpicked blackberries rotting away suggested that this has been the case for most of the autumn.

Not a bad walk – just under 10km in total. The f717 held up. There was one format error issue, but that was all. It should be OK to use it as a work cam if need be.

There was something of a BrewDog incident early evening. I’m convinced that I saw a label at the Coop saying that a pack of ten Punk IPA was on offer at £10.50. I’ll have TWO of those.

Chin chin.

Back at base and my penny pinching ways led to me discovering I had been charged £13.

BASTARDS!

I returned to the Coop with my receipt. But OF COURSE you did, Jase.

The weird thing was that the price for the BrewDog display had now been removed. How very odd. I explained the situation and asked for confirmation what the price was. The poor staff didn’t know. They didn’t hesitate in handing over £6 in coins.

It should have only been a fiver, even if my own cloudy memory of £10.50 was correct. So not only did I get the budget price BrewDog, but I was also £1 up.

Small wins.

Links for Friday 23rd December, 2022

How the British Press Got Almost Everything Wrong In 2022

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